


Tainted Bloodline

by felixruveris



Series: Serpents and Pomegranates [2]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Consensual Sex, F/M, Incest, Pregnancy, Rape (mentioned), Sexual Content, father / daughter incest, parent / child incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-03 19:54:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4112953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felixruveris/pseuds/felixruveris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to “My dear, my dear, it’s not so dreadful here”.</p><p>Back from the Underworld, Persephone is forgiven but doesn’t forgive – and she most definitely won’t forget.</p><p>Part I: in which a mother forgives and a daughter doesn’t.</p><p>“From her first day on Earth to her last, Mother holds her to her breast at night."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. at last they lay entwined

**Author's Note:**

> BEFORE WE BEGIN: This is a sequel to my other work “My dear, my dear, it’s not so dreadful here” ( ). I don’t know, I just felt the need to go back to these guys and tie some loose ends. While this is most enjoyed after reading the previous instalment, here is a previously on for all the lazy bones out there (just kidding XD):
> 
> After the matter of her (arranged) kidnapping is settled, Persephone begins her life in Underworld as Hades’ wife and queen. As she acquainted with her new role, she has a run in with her estranged father – Zeus himself – and starts a feud with Hades’ previous paramour, Mynthe, which ends in bloodshed just before her journey back to Earth.
> 
> And now, without further ado, I leave you “Tainted Bloodline” (a.k.a. in which Cronides are mostly fuckers and it shows).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a mother forgives and a daughter doesn't.

**_t_ ainted _b_ loodline**

 

**_a_ ** **t last they lay entwined**

 

From her first day on Earth to her last, Mother holds her to her breast at night.

As she lets herself be cradled, Persephone’s mind wanders home, dwells on the memory of Hades’ arms around her waist and daydreams it is him and not Demeter to hold her close.

_(She hates herself for it, but she cannot help it. And she must not think about her husband – not if she means to keep her grasp on sanity, that is.)_

There is no mistaking one for the other, though, even with eyes closed.

In the stillness of slumber, Mother’s embrace is much like her season - a living thing, scorching breath coming from summer’s parted maw. More often than not, she finds herself sweating, as if laying on the ground on a sunny day. Used as she is to the chilly air of Underworld (and the mild warmth of Hades’ body), it grows uncomfortable at times, yet not once does she drive Mother away, never does she ask for more space on the feather mattress.

Lying with their legs entwined, they get reacquainted with each other, carefully tiptoeing around the matter of her betrayal – at first. She hesitates to explain her reasons, and Mother seems content enough to have her and to hold her, stroking her hair, her cheeks.

Careful they may be, but there is little denying Mother’s feelings. Her face is but a mirror of her heart’s desires. In fact, few occasions come to mind when Demeter, constant in her inconstancies, put a guard over her eyes, as they say, kept watch over the door of her lips [1] and she never quite mastered the technique. 

 **“All I do, I do for you, my child”** , she tells her one night, tongue loosened by foul scented wine.

(She always had a taste for earthly things – the food in her belly to the lovers in her bed, when she fancied one. It runs in the family.)

 **“Even before the cave, I knew there is no trusting our kin, our gracious king especially.”** Her mouth takes a sour twist. **“Pity I found treason in the most unexpected places.”**

It stings her core. Persephone raises a hand and gently rubs Mother’s rounded stomach. **“Yet some good came out of the bad, did it not?”** Demeter’s laugh is a bark. **“Amphitrite is no Panoptes [2], if that is what you mean –  and sure enough, she knows better than turning her eyes in my direction. Forgetful of mind, at that, so no need to hurry to Delos in the dead of the night, no fear to wake up one morn and find myself a cow. Jolly ho. I could easily pass for one as it is, big as I am, and small wonder if someone tries and milks me. Look at me now, babe still in the womb and spilling like Peirene [3] already. Feels as if I wobble carrying stones bound to my chest on the logs that were once my ankles and by the time I pop I’ll be rounder than Gaia. [4]”**       

She swallows the bitter cup of Mother’s sarcasm without complaint. It is not her place to tell her what they both know, that this new child will ease her loneliness on Earth.

_(Perhaps a daughter. She half hopes it will, half hopes it won’t.)_

Besides, she doubts she could be more sympathetic if she tried. She felt every bit of her Mother pain when she unburdened herself, told her of Poseidon’s violent lust. Uncle Poseidon, scent of seaweeds clung to his skin, hungry face and angry heart.

_(Their poison, they share it.)_

She squeezes her fingers on the taut roundness, searching for the baby’s kick. **“Perhaps they will do better than me”** , she says, and she means it.

Mother’s eyes flutter close for the briefest moment. **“You love him well, I get that now. Queen you might be, but you are still my precious. It is not that I don’t see, more that I don’t trust. Look at me.”** She waves one hand, encompassing her whole frame. **“Living and breathing proof of what happens when you let yourself forget what we are.”**

She stays silent.

 **“My little brother, as it turns out, is no exception to that. He had all the assistance he needed, of course.”** Now, Mother drips plain bitterness. She clenches a fist, squirming uncomfortably on the bed. 

 **“Seems to me the need to hurt each other overcomes us – we are both the scorpions and the frogs. [5] We all come from Kronos’ loins, after all. Foolish to think otherwise.”** Her gaze in hers has all the fury of a summer storm.

_(She must admit, she is glad she is not the recipient of such scorn – she can’t help but feel that she should be, though. She fits the description perfectly.)_

**“I could have killed him, Kore, if that is even possible, I could have killed them both. I only subsided because… you know why. Best keeping you out of Hera’s reach.”** She strokes her hair instinctively, while Persephone still rubs her stomach.

Such family to be born into.

 **“A serpent must eat another serpent to become a dragon [6]”** , she whispers, Mynthe’s bloody face flashes behind her eyes, Mother ravished as she looked for her spirited away daughter, sorrow piling upon sorrow – yet she carries herself straight like the queen she is.  

She inches closer – if she possibly can- half hunched on Mother’s reap stomach, hugging her tight despite her uncomfortably outstretched limbs. She wonders briefly if Demeter understands, and for that night there is nothing more to say.

She shares their poison but she needs the wings. As the sun rises on them and she finally falls asleep, it dawns on her. “Us”, Mother said. Persephone included.

_(She never told her, but it is unlikely she does not know about Mynthe, about the new scent in her hair. How she prides in the destruction she caused.)_

Perhaps she wraps her arms around her so tightly for fear their blood overcomes her and she leaves again.

For fear of her scorpion’s poisonous tail.

 _(She does not voice the question and she kills it dead, buries it deep inside herself, there where what could not and what had not been lie to rest.)_    

**Notes:**

[1]: Inspired by psalm 141:3 : " _Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips_."

[2]: Panoptes: Argus Panoptes was a giant with a hundred eyes covering his body. The epithet “panopte” means “all eyes”.

[3]: Peirene: a mythological fountain located in Corinth said to be the transformed form of nymph Peirene.

[4]: Gaia: Earth.

[5]: scorpions and frogs: a fable by Aesop in which a frog carries a scorpion across a river on its back and is later stung  by it for no other reason than “animal nature”.

[6]: A serpent must eat another serpent...: ancient Greek proverb.

[7]: wings: in greek mythology, a dragon is a winged serpent.


	2. Love the Sin, Hate the Sinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a mother knows best (and we get to the M part of this work).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE WE BEGIN: This is rated M for a reason (spoiler: DE SEX).

**_l_ ** **ove the sin, hate the sinner**

 

 

She dutifully performs the rites, has blood spilled in her name, entrails burnt in perfumed wood. The worshippers are but a tide of dark hair and pink scalps from where she sits, their gazes cast downward - dreading the sight of her, lethal as striking bolt for the human eye.

_(Once shuffled off their mortal coils, they will all but forget that shyness. The slight aftertaste of Death’s kiss turns everyone bolder.)_

Yet she feels it, the tingle at the back of her neck, the shiver under the surface of her skin, the inkling of being observed. She remains still, fighting the tempting thought of turning her head and scanning the crowd. The sensation settles at the pit of her stomach, making it quiver.

Many a time she experiences the oddity of such a feeling – each time unable to identify the source of it, equally unable to shrug it off. Sitting still on her makeshift throne during sacrifices and banquets, making her way through the fields under Mother’s watchful gaze, even at night, wrapped in Mother’s strong, soft arms. She fights off the urge to look around, she sits queenly still during rites, she drinks the sound of Mother’s voice.

Her departure grows imminent, Mother’s eyes more distant. She walks with her, she holds her hand, yet she feels herself slipping away, half longing half dreading to stay. Heavy as Mother is, Every waking hour is spent in her fields, white, naked feet treading the black, naked earth.

A she walks, her skin dampens and sweat glues dust to the skin of her feet, of her ankles. The chilly air of Underworld has made her oversensitive to the heat of Apollo’s star and her dress sticks to her chest, to her thighs.

There is a spring. The water is so cold you would think Styx itself surges from the earth in a puddle deep enough to bathe in. Oftentimes she sheds her clothes, her veils and lets the cold ripples envelop her overheated body, cleanse the filthy flesh as the kind hands of an handmaiden massage her hair, hands smelling of mint.

_(She bathes in the blood of her defeated enemy, basks in the scent of triumph clinging to her skin.)_

Mother’s season draws so near, so fast and soon there is barely time left for them to spend together. It is the last day of spring and she has one foot on the Earth and one in the Underworld when yet again she succumbs to the heat. There she takes refuge, beaten by the pitiless sunshine.

Her clothes relinquished, she sits in the shallow water, eyes closed, legs stretched, deft fingers running through the damp strands. She senses it when the touch changes its nature, leaves her hair and moves to her shoulders. Hands no longer feminine, no longer chaste, caressing her, her breasts, gently pinching her nipples. 

She turns her head, looking over her shoulder, and he is so close, so familiar. Emotion boils at the pit of her stomach, the odd feeling she has been unable to place until that very moment.

She inhales his breath. Recognition soars through her, runs in her veins as her beating blood. She turns to face him, she inches closer, she throws her arms around his neck, she lets him kiss her, lets him whisper to her: **“Kore, Kore, Kore”**. 

He gathers her to, lays her down on the grass and the hearth, tongue licking hers, parting her thighs and settling between them.

Hades’ kiss, Hades’ hands, Hades’ long limbed, lean body.

Hades’ fingers working between her legs for the longest time, titillating the slick, heated skin there. She returns the kindness her hands on his crotch, plays him like an instrument and he sings in her ear.

She is panting, eyes wide open, loud moans coming out of her throat, sweats pooling under her breasts, behind the knees, on her inner thighs. A push and they are joined; she sinks her teeth in her lower lip, digs her nails into his back as if to rip the skin open and ransack inside, holds his flanks with her calves like a python as he rocks her, slow and steady, their sobs an obscene lullaby.

_(Yet, her mind is an impenetrable curtain of rain, thoughts falling slow, thick as an icy wall within the confines of her skull.)_

He paints colourful stars behind her eyelids and she feels his semen drip inside her body. They lay entwined, limbs confused, bones melt.

_(She is acutely aware of where she begins and where he ends nevertheless.)_

He raises a hand, dips it in her damp hair, oh so tenderly. Even as sweet tiredness begins to lull her into slumber, she never lets her eyelids fall, not even flutter, leaving stab wounds in his brain with her still gaze (or so she hopes). She can spy the pain it causes behind his eyes as he collects himself, disentwines from her, standing up, donning his tunic, shedding his disguise.

Dreadfully exquisite features rearrange in the oval of his face. They do look alike, sharing the straight line of the nose, of the jaw, the high cheekbones. Yet, there is a suppleness under the golden skin of his cheeks and lips, not quite concealed by the silvery fur of his beard. Youth and age coexisting in one charming visage, fluid, forever changing where Hades is all tragic stillness even as he smiles.

  **“Our son thrives”** , he only says, still breathy as he sinks his sword of words in her chest. 

She is so tired and so alert, incapable of letting her gaze slide off his eyes. Stormy eyes, her own eyes, when Hades’ are the bluish grey of snow.

He longs to get away from her, now, as her scent clings to his skin, her nails stings on his back. Her lips curves in a smile, sweet and ruthless as the pain inside her body, inside her deserted womb.

One last look and he is gone, enveloped by the green forest as recollection by Lethe.

_(He is still there on her body, very much real where they have joined, her flesh tingly, his semen on her thighs. So very real where his words have struck, so deep in her she had though it unreachable.)_

The wound gapes inside of her, yet there is triumph. It sears through her mind, reaches her lips, curls them in a snarl not unlike that other time when Mynthe’s blood staining her fingers scarlet. She lays there, an insect crawling on the naked skin of her belly, a foot in the water, fingertips scratching the earth.

Splayed, spread open for the Heavens to see. They will look at her, unable to see through her deception, to see the poison working its way to lovers’ hearts, burning them black, leaving cold hollows in their chests.

_(Her Husband, her King is not forgotten; he quietly roams the outskirts of her conscience, far from sight, so that her glee is just barely tainted by guilt.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE YOU GO: Well, wasn't this angsty. Zeus sucks at parenting and has a thing for roleplaying and Persephone has a taste for hate&revenge sex. Worry not, Hades will have his say in the matter.
> 
> Next on this channel: in which the prodigal wife goes back home and she regrets nothing.
> 
> “Shall I bed another?”   
> She stops dead. He stares at her, looming on her with his naked form, calmingly stabbing her where it hurts without quite laying a finger on her. “What says my dearest wife? Shall I take one to this bed and make it known, make you the one to laugh at, the one to pity?


	3. Tainted Bloodlines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the prodigal wife goes back home and she regrets nothing.

**_t_ ** **ainted bloodline**

 

 

**“You know”.**

**“Is there anyone who does not, in Heaven or Hell?”**

**“You know why.”**

**“But of course. A serpent never becomes a dragon unless it devours a serpent.”**

Nothing, not the chilliness in the air, not the paleness of the light, better reminds her she is back in the Underworld than the silence, the dead absence of sound making every word a hollow echo, ricocheting from the naked, marble walls.

She gathers her thoughts. **“In taking what he wanted and got what he deserved.”** It sounds reasonable to her ears, yet reason does not chase away the anger in Hades’ eyes, the irises like cracked ice, containing the freezing water underneath. Ready to burn her skin away.

**“And what do I get, dearest wife, my Queen? What do I get for my trust, my faithfulness?”** , he spits out, the muscle of his face barely moving, a slight tremor at the corner of his lips.

She stares at him, offers only silence. What does he get, indeed? A disgraced wife a stain on his honour a bleeding heart. She takes a step closer, nearly tripping on her discarded dress pooling at her feet. He takes a step back, as if following her lead in a dance. She raises a hand and touch his broken face, to wipe away the sweat on his brow.

_(A slight bruise the shape of his fingers is starting to form on her wrist where he has grabbed her earlier, as they feverishly mated. Hard, fast, slightly painful, oh so good. Other such flowers will eventually bloom on her skin – perhaps he will be glad, then.)_

**“Shall I bed another?”**

She stops dead. He stares at her, looming on her with his naked form, calmingly stabbing her where it hurts without quite laying a finger on her. **“What says my dearest wife? Shall I take one to this bed and make it known, make you the one to laugh at, the one to pity?”**

_(Not a word about casting her aside. There is hope to hold on to.)_

She sees it, Hades on the warm bed with another faceless Mynthe. She grits her teeth, shamefully unable to conceal her outrage. **“Of course we would not be even! What do you know of me, what do you know of him?”**

There is no pain at all, just the gnawing hate. **“Did I take away your pride? He took my honour, my maidenhead, my chance at having a future away from Mother’s tender grasp”,** she growls, lowering her arm, fist in a ball, lowering her torso like an animal crouched, ready to attack.

She sees herself in the cave, the serpent’s spires crawling about her ankles, oh so pleasant, sensuous as a man’s touch – until it turns into just that, driving her insane with want. She sees herself afterwards, in seclusion with her heartbroken mother and her growing belly.

**“He put a child in my womb then stole him from me, my father! The one reason he agreed to this marriage, schemed for it to happen, was to spirit me away from Aunt Hera. As if I were to blame for him acting like a beast forever in heat!”**

Her infant son, taken away still besmirched of her own blood.

She is shrieking, now, eyes closed, clenched fists shaking. **“Not one word of apology to me, no fatherly affection whatsoever. Just that prick of his, shoved between his own daughter’s legs – and I am the ruined one, to hid away in the depth of the Earth as the most despicable sin.”**

 She opens her eyes, closes the space between herself and Hades and punches his chest with all her might. **“I want him to suffer. I want them to suffer. I want them to look each other in the eye and see only me!”**

_(Now, look at her, losing her temper as a cross child, shooting daggers, shouting as a fisherman’s wife. Her father’s daughter indeed.)_

Silence again, now. Hades breath is calm, hers is ragged and comes in an unsteady tempo. She dares looking up, wide-eyed. She will not offend him by begging his forgiveness. He deserves a better queen than that. A better woman she cannot offer.

_(What words her mouth do not form, her eyes tell him in its stead.)_

**“So be it.”**

He surprised her once more. **“Let him suffer. Let them lay down to sleep on the poor ashes of their marriage.”** He brushes aside a strand of hair on her brow – she is utterly unable to read his face. Whatever rage was there had slipped back under the icy surface.

_(She has cast her die, betting that he wants Zeus to suffer as heartily as her, betting his husbandly pride is a sacrifice he is willing to make.)_

He drops his hand, turns her back to her, straight as an arrow, remote and cold. No matter –there he stays and she is indeed her father’s daughter, so she presses her chest to his back, her lips to his spine, her fingers to his heart until, eventually, they reach inside and squeeze it hard.

_(She wonders if it dawns to him now, that they are made of the same stuff, share one tainted bloodline.)_

* * *

 

 

When a child is born to her, a daughter, the gods gather in celebration.

_(All of them. Hades’ love lies in secret touches, but he sheds his discreet ways and wraps his arm around her waist. Persephone smiles at Zeus and her smile is all teeth, plants the lightest of kisses on Hera’s white cheek.)_

When news reaches human ears, it comes surrounded by rumors. Whisper have it the child is different. Not deformed nor touched in the head - her face, her tiny body half black half white.

When Mother reports to her what is being said, Persephone grins, basking in the sun, cradling the child’s tiny form. Silly humankind. How would they even know what she looks like when looking at her would strike them dead?

She smiles down at the sleeping face of her living revenge, lips puckered, eyelids so fine she can see the veins underneath. **“Nonsense. Hardly anything could be this perfect”.**

_(And yet, it is not entirely false. Fine as they are, the fluttering eyelids are quite enough concealment for Melinoe[1]’s mismatched irises, one stormy blue-black, one pale as ice.)_

 

 

 

**Notes:**

 

[1]: Kthonian goddess, Persephone's daughter by both Hades and Zeus. Half of her body was reportedly white while the other half was black.

 

[ _end._ ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE YOU GO: And that's it for this installment. I hope you guys enjoyed the ride and thank you for jumping in with me and my creepy babies! Please take a moment to let me know what you think and until next time. xxx

**Author's Note:**

> BEFORE YOU GO: And that is all for part one. Demeter is not exactly fond of her family but who can blame her.
> 
> Next on this channel: Mother knows best or in which we get to the M part of this work.
> 
> “He gathers her to him, lays her down on the grass and the hearth, tongue licking hers, parting her thighs and settling between them.
> 
> Hades’ kiss, Hades’ hands, Hades’ long limbed, lean body.”


End file.
